Different Trips to the Same Place

By: Author Unknown ~

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You’ve heard it’s a wonderful place; you’ve read many guidebooks and feel certain that you’re ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip.

So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there’s no seat for you; you’ll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait---and wait---and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, “Relax. You’ll get on a flight soon.” Other people actually get on the plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, “It’s not fair!”

After a long time, the ticket agent tells you, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat.” “By BOAT!” you say. “Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane.” So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than by air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat.

It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip. Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia.

It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air. People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel once, perhaps twice.

Some say things like, “Oh, be glad you didn’t fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy.” You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not the way you get there, but in the place itself.

Feelings...

My heart is being prepared for the addition of another child. I can feel it...I feel like I did when we were pursuing Faith's adoption, before we were matched. My heart is being softened. I get all teary and emotional reading other people's adoptions experiences, and I get that tingly, excited feeling. Adoption is such an emotionally charge thing that it's hard to not react. Our lives are forever touched by adoption, so I imagine that it will always have some sort of a hold on my heart. Right now, Derek and I, are trying to discern God's will in this area. Does He want us to pursue another domestic, newborn adoption or a foster-adopt program? I guess only time will tell...

My Dream

I had a dream the other night and I can't stop thinking about it. I dreamed that Derek and I had three small children...all girls. There was beautiful Faith, who was a preschooler. Little Sophia, who was a toddler (and p.s. we have not settled on any names for a girl for baby number 2; although we do have a boy's name picked out. Sophia was just the name in my dream.). And then there was our brand new daughter. She was so tiny and small and only a few days old. We hadn't picked out a name for her yet, so I was going around and referring to her as My Glorious Joy.

I totally believe that this was a dream from the Lord. I have been praying about our growing family, and had asked the Lord to reveal our next child to me in a dream. I had a dream about a baby girl (baby number 2) and Faith was around 2 or so in my dream. A couple of nights later, I had this dream and baby number 2 was still a girl and we had a third daughter.

I'm just amazed by this. I feel so humbled that the Lord would hear my prayers and reveal His plan to me. I just had to document it, so that I can reference these dreams to our children when they are older...

Devil's Lake

Last weekend, we spent the day at Devil's Lake. We had the most spectacular time. The park is so gorgeous that we didn't want to leave. We brought our portable grill with us and had a picnic by the water. The weather was perfect and after lunch we took Faith into the lake for some splashing. She thoroughly enjoyed putting every single rock she found into her mouth. Then, she discovered that she could drink the lake water...yuck! But, she had a grand time wading around in her oh so cute bathing suit compliments of C.G.

Once Faith tired of being in the water, we played bocce ball. Faith eventually caved and fell asleep for a short little nap. Derek and I took the opportunity to go for a leisurly hike while she slumbered. We left Faith in the care of Derek's mom, and found a trail called the potholes. Little did we know that this was no leisurly trail. The potholes is a 0.3 mile rock step trail that goes straight up and takes on average 2 hours to complete. But, we didn't know that at the time.

As we were climbing, we kept meeting families with fairly small children coming down for the top. We were sweating, huffing and puffing, but they were all having a grand time. I kept telling Derek that if small children can make the hike, then surely we must be able to as well. After about an hour of climbing and no end in sight, I finally asked a family coming down how far it was to the top. That's when we found out we were about half way, and that there was an easy trail that went to the top on the other side of the lake. That's how all those families made it. Apparently, it's a lot easier going down the potholes then up. I wouldn't know. My legs were rubber by the time we turned around. We didn't make it to the top. Maybe next year...

We took a lovely scenic drive when we got done and capped our day off with dinner at A & W. What a great day fun!!!

Summer Plans

Summer is just about here. YAY!!!! When you live in Wisconsin, warm days are to be fully utilized to their fullest potential. But, also as parents now, we find ourselves wanting to create lots of family memories. We want our children to look back on their childhood with fondness...to recall all the great times we spent together just being a family...small, everyday moments and bigger, momentous moments. We always start our summer with lots of expectation, but have been guilty of not living summer to it's fullest. So this year, we have been planning out our summer.

So far we have on the agenda:

~ Bike rides

~ "Sunday" drives out in the country
~ The Madison Zoo and visit with birthfamily

~ The Farmer's Market

~ Kettle Moraine State Park and Pike Lake

~ Point Beach on Lake Michigan

~ Down a Country Road (an Amish gift shop community in LaCrosse)

~ Strawberry picking

~ Breakfast on the farm (June 14th)

~ Door County for our anniversary (six years!)

~ Door County day trip for Father's Day

~ Cookouts at the park

~ Family walks on local trails

~ Lunch with Derek at work

~ Trips to Illinois to visit family

~ 4th of July fireworks

~ Roasting marshmallows over the fire pit

~ Lots and lots of grilling out

~ Family time spent doing yard work together

~ Miniature golf

~ Out door photo shoots of nature and old barns

~ Memorial Parks and Garden (where we had our edding reception)

~I'll continue to add to the list...

As I was writing this list, I was thinking about our past summers together. Here are some pictures from previous summers...

Our First Summer with Faith:

B.F. or Before Faith...

Misc. Summer Pictures...

Can you say YUCK?!?

So we are officially crowned, PARENTS-OF-A-TODDLER. This morning when I went to get Faith up, I found her squishing pee-filled super-absorbent from her diaper in her hands. Now, said diaper, was not on her hiney, but was instead laying in the crib. Butt-naked Faith had taken her overnight diaper off, riped it open, and was happily exploring all the gross insides of her diaper. Gel was everywhere! Can you say yuck!!!!

My First Cake

I was at the grocery store the other day, when I saw a hamburger cake in the bakery aisle. It was super cute, and I immediately thought of my mom, who regularly sends baked goods to the Emergency Departement where my step-dad works as an awesome physician. Anyway, we both decided to try our hand at making a cake. After some research online, we found lots of inspiration. Here is my attempt (and directions)...I think it turned out perfect!

The Cake

I used 3 cake mixes to make all of this. 2 boxes of yellow cake for the buns, and 1 box of chocolate cake to make the burger. I had left over cake batter, so I made some cupcakes. I used my icecream cake pan to make the buns. The top is a dome shape and the bottom is a flatter, round shape. I didn't have any round pans, so I used a square pan for my chocolate cake.

(The bottom bun.)

(I used a small bowl to trace my hamburger and make sure it would fit on my bun.)

(My "burger" without all the fixings.)

(White icing for the mayo, red and yellow for the ketchup and mustard, and green for the lettuce.)

The Fries

(To make the fries, I took my 11X13 yellow cake and cut it into strips.)

(Then I laid each strip on it's side and cut the crust off of each end.)

(Then I cut the strip in half to get a skinny fry.)

(You lay the cake strips on a pan and broil them for a couple of minutes on each side. They'll burn pretty quickly, so you have to keep an eye on them.)

The Result!!!